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Occasional announcements sent by Streaming Media, or on behalf of our advertising partners, on what we feel are important offers, developments, publications, and events in the streaming/online video industry.

Helping publishers stream to every platform, white label online publishing company thePlatform announced an enhancement to its video player. The Player Service now leads with HTML5 and includes Flash as a fallback.

Making HTML5 the default video player offers several advantages, says thePlatform. Viewers will benefit from faster load times than with Flash-based players, and clients will enjoy lower development costs, the company said in a press release. Both groups will benefit from videos that play equally well on browsers and iOS, Android, and Windows 8 devices.

While videos will play on both HTML5 and Flash browsers, thePlatform is quick to point out that customers won't need to manage two backend systems. That's because the company's MPX publishing system can associate business policies and metadata with video played in either format.

While this may seem premature to many, seeing as HTML5 video still doesn't include some business essentials such as digital rights management (DRM), Marty Roberts, senior vice president of sales and marketing for thePlatform declares that HTML5 is now ready for primetime. thePlatform advises all customers to use HTML5 as their lead setting for video.

thePlatform's player offers ad integration for both live and on-demand content. It also offers reporting tools from partners Conviva, Google Analytics, Omniture, comScore, Nielsen, and others.